


Maketh the Man

by skund



Category: DCU - Comicverse
Genre: Fluff, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-17
Updated: 2010-07-17
Packaged: 2017-10-10 15:07:36
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,059
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/101091
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/skund/pseuds/skund
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Something is not right during Clark's morning commute.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Maketh the Man

The bus pulls away from the curb just as Clark rounds the corner. He broke into a run, one hand in the air, the other clutching his briefcase. Sure, he could have just flown to work, and been early instead, but that defeated the whole point of having a secret identity. Doing the 9-to-five tango. When you have the power to stop the world from turning you need something to remind you of the little things. Like the uncommon mercy of bus drivers.

The bus stops a metre down the road and Clark scrambles aboard, spilling 'thankyous' to the driver. She just grins and him and waves him on. He heads towards the back of the bus. A primly dressed blond woman eyes him up and down as he walks past, a small smile on her face. He frowns slightly and looks away, focusing on pretending to be out of breath. Normally he'd sit and people watch for the half hour ride to work, but last night he didn't manage to get much work done. He should have enough time to go over appointments and story notes on his PDA before this morning's staff meeting.

All too soon the bus pulls up to his stop, and Clark disembarks. He's trying to put his PDA back in his bag, get out of the way of other people getting off the bus and check his watch when he walks into another pedestrian.

“Oh, sorry!” he apologises quickly.

“No, excuse me.” The woman purrs, trailing her hand down his chest where she collided with him. She walks away, looking back over her shoulder twice.

Clark blinks, standing in the flow of people on the footpath. Then shakes it off. The bus made good time and he has just enough time to grab a coffee. The small family-run cafe a block from the Daily Planet doesn't have a loyalty card or do double-shot half-caff soy mochas, but the people remember his name and Mrs Zantos sometimes gives him left over pastries from the day before. The barista behind the counter was new though, when he enters the modest little shop.

“Hi handsome, what can I getcha?” she asks as he approaches.

“Er, just a regular cappuccino. Takeaway, thanks.”

“No prob.” She winks back.

Clark stands very still while she works the coffee machine, trying to recall the last time they had to fight one of those horrible pheromone-using villains. Poison Ivy was in Arkham, thankfully. Luthor's thing this year was magnets. No other offenders sprang to mind. He is pondering calling the Watchtower and checking out recent meteorite falls when the coffee is placed on the counter in front of him. He smiles in thanks, wrestles the little plastic lid on top and goes to work.

He is the third last person to enter the meeting room, at three minutes to nine. He nods and waves greetings to the assembled Planet staff and drops into a seat between Lois and Kat.

“Mornin', Smallville.”

“Hi Lois.” He watches her carefully. She is sitting head down, already scribbling notes furiously. She wasn't winking or purring or doing anything... like that. Clark relaxed. “How are you?”

“No bad. The traffic on High St was murder as usual, though.” Lois snorts and rolls her eyes.

“Well, that's what you get for hobnobbing it on the upper-” Clark is cut off when Kat suddenly leaned over and trails a perfectly-manicured finger down his arm.

“This,” she purrs (and Clark tries not to curse), “is a gorgeous suit, Clark.”

“What? This is just one of my usual... everyday suits.” he shrugs. He sees Lois roll her eyes again in the corner of his vision.

“Don't be silly, boy. Where did you get it?” Kat persists.

Clark pointedly holds his arm out to her, showing off the jacket. “Look, it's just a-” He looks down and freezes. It is a nice jacket. It is a _very_ nice jacket. It's double breasted with soft, lush wool fitting snugly against his torso. It was cool and elegant and comfortable and utterly and completely not his. Oh God.

“Er. Excuse me.” Clark quickly gets to his feet and slips out of the room, Lois' frown and Kat's uproarious laughter at his back. He hurries over to his desk, grabs his phone and dials home. It rings half a dozen times before the answering machine picks up the call. Of course it does, he mentally sighed. It's not like he'd answer. He patiently waits for his own voice on the other side of the line to finish, then lets the message recording start.

“Bruce, pick up.” he half-whispers, hoping no one in the meeting room would overhear. “Please.”

There is a rattle over the line, followed by a sleepy grunt. “What? ... And why are you calling your own phone?”

“Because you're there, B. Look, I'm sorry but I acci-”

“So why didn't you use the League communicators?” interrupts Bruce's muffled voice, accompanied by the rustle of sheets.

“Because this isn't an emergency.”

“So then why are you calling?”

Clark pinches the bridge of his nose with his free hand. “Because I have your jacket!”

“What?”

“All our clothes are in a pile in the living room from... before, remember? I grabbed the wrong jacket this morning when I was getting dressed. ”

“Oh.”

“Do you want me to fly back and-”

“No, it's fine.” Bruce sighed sleepily. “Keep it.”

“I don't want to keep it.”

“Fine, give it back to me later.”

“Are you sure?”

“Uh huh.” Bruce's voice was getting more and more indistinct, muffled by pillows.

Clark thought, with wry affection, that he was lucky to get such a coherent Bat at this hour. “Ok, I'll see you later.”

“Mmm.”

“Love you.”

“Mmm.”

Just as Clark was hanging up the phone Bruce muttered something else. Without superhearing Clark never would have heard it. But he did. And smiled.

He makes it back to the meeting room just as Perry is getting everyone settled. He hurries back to his seat, getting matching looks from the women on either side. He doesn't look at them. He sits through the meeting, and then a few hours of writing, lunch, some tea room banter, a bit of editing, over an hour on the phone to the Mayor's department and then the bus ride home. In Bruce's jacket.


End file.
